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We are readers and we often recommend books to one another. Recently, we both read, and enjoyed, The Leaving Room by Amber McBride.
This beautiful novel is written for a young adult audience, but easily enjoyable by adults. This is an unusual book as it takes place in just four minutes in that space between life and death. It also happens to involve a scene about someone starting their first period.
The narrator, Gospel, takes us through assisting several children from passing over from life into death with care and attention. These scenes are tender and have great attention to details and what a child might need to feel safe and comfortable. Some of the children ask big questions, others just need comfort. As the story moves on, we meet Melodie who also is in this space and whose story begins to merge with Gospel's. As Melodie and Gospel begin to form a connection, their environment begins to decay despite their best efforts at keeping things together.
Although the story only covers four minutes, it feels as if it is months passing, taking us through the seasons, different stages of growing up, and more.
The novel is called The Leaving Room, yet involves two spaces that merge into one--is it a room? Is it a world? Is it something else?
This beautiful novel, written in verse, treats the occasion of having a first period as important but not unusual and not something to be sensationalized nor hidden.
We would love to know what other novels, films, movies, and so on you are aware of that include scenes around menstruation. In our first podcast episode (find the blog post and links to the show HERE), we mentioned a few:
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